Monday, January 18, 2010

Some News for Mon Jan 18, 2010

Manager Roy Hodgson: "It looks he has suffered cruciate knee ligament damage which if he has keeps him out of action for a while. We won't know for certain until the scan is completed on Monday but the doctors are pretty good these days and often their initial prognosis proves to be the correct one." He later went on to say: "The extent of Clint Dempsey's knee injury will be known following a scan [Monday]."

The seriousness of the injury beyond that is unknown. It could be bad, or it could be minor. But we have heard that he suffered some sort of cruciate ligament damage.

Some words from USA coach Bob Bradley on the injury: "Obviously we're waiting on reports of the scan. We saw the play and it looks like such a harmless play. Now we just need to wait and see and keep our fingers crossed.You never want to see your players injured and Clint has been in good form. We have the hope that the time is right for him to be able to get through this, continue to play for his club team as well as he has and be ready for the World Cup.Clint has been an important player for us. He's a true competitor and he puts his and heart and soul into every game. His role with our team has been important and he continues to be a guy we count on a great deal. He's got that little extra ability you can't always teach to sometimes make a little bit of room and come up with a chance, like yesterday on the overhead [kick which hit the crossbar in the first half]. Those things are important for us and continue to be important for Fulham."(Poached from the Team USA blog. See link and details below in Team USA January Camp section.)

Chivas USA keeper Zach Thornton comments on his first call up for Team USA back in 1994: "I wasn't in to following soccer and I had no idea who Steve Sampson was." (Sampson was the assistant to coach Bora Milutinovic and made the phone call to Thornton.) See a great Q & A with Thornton in the Team USA January Camp section below.

Remember when Kenny Cooper got a knee injury and the prognosis was for him to miss about 3 weeks of action. Well, it's been nearly 9 know, and we have no heard anything. What is going on?-Greg Seltzer at Soccer 365 gives us an update.

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Jozy Altidore did not make the bench for Hull City, probably due to the insanity going down in Haiti. (They drew 0-0 at Tottenham.)

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Zak Whitbread made his Norwich debut as a substitute.

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The little known 23 year old forward Jon Paul Pitman scored his 5th goal of the season for Wycombe in England's League One. He has been on a roll lately!

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DaMarcus Beasley is still out with the hamstring strain. Damn!

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Carlos Bocanegra is just shit out of luck at Rennes, as he spent yet another game riding the pine. He better get it figured out soon cuz the World Cup is just too close for him not to be playing.

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Jonathan Spector has played at left fullback again for West Ham. I think he should get a shot at that position for Team USA.

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Freddy Adu made the bench for the first time at his new team in Greece, but did not play. Eddie Johnson did though, see below for details.

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GAME ACTION

ENGLAND - Premier LeagueClint Dempsey - Fulham - started but was subbed out in the 62nd minute due to injury as they lost 2-0 at Blackburn.Landon Donovan - Everton - started and was subbed out in the 90th minute as they beat Manchester City 2-0 at home.Brad Friedel - Aston Villa - went the full 90 and drew 0-0 at home with West Ham.Marcus Hahnemann - Wolverhampton - went the distance, stopping a Penalty Kick, but lost 0-2 at home to Wigan.Tim Howard - Everton - went the full 90 as usual and won 2-0 at home over Manchester City.Jonathan Spector - West Ham - played all of a scoreless draw at Aston Villa.

ENGLAND - League OneMike Grella - Leeds - came on as a sub in the 85th minute but they lost 2-0 at Exeter City.Jon Paul Pitman - Wycombe - went the full 90 ans scored another goal but they lost 1-2 at home against Charlton.Zak Whitbread - Norwich City - came on as a sub in the 83rd minute as they won big 0-5 at Colchester United.

GERMANY - BundesligaMichael Bradley - Monchengladbach - played the whole match but lost 1-2 at home to Bochum.Steve Cherundolo - Hannover - started but came out after 54 minutes as they lost at home 0-3 to Hertha.

GERMANY - 2 BundesligaMatt Taylor - Frankfurt - came on as a sub in the 56th minute, but they got drilled 5-0 at Duisburg.

GREECE - Super LeagueEddie Johnson - Aris - came on as a sub in the 78t minute to help preserve a 0-1 road win at Giannina.

NETHERLANDS - Eerste DivisieCharles Kaslauskus - Helmond Sport - went the full 90 as they won easily 4-1 at home over BV Veendam.

SCOTLAND - Premier LeagueMaurice Edu - Rangers - played the entire match as they beat Hamliton 0-1 on the road.

The new season kicked off this past weekend. And Herculez Gomez made his debut for Puebla.

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MEXICO - Primera Division ClausuraEdgar Castillo - UANL Tigres - went the distance as they won 0-1 at Puebla.Herculez Gomez - Puebla - came on as a sub in the 52nd minute but they lost 0-1 at home to UANL.Jose Francisco Torres - Pachuca - Came off the bench in the 61st minute as they opened the season winning 3-0 at home over Estudiantes Tecos.

MEXICO

Cuauhtemoc Blanco made his debut for the Red Sharks of Veracruz on Saturday and they got drilled 4-0 at Irapuato, whose team nickname is The Strawberry Lashers, I kid you not.

I had a guy from England send me a bitter email asking me to stop referring to the Engligh Premier League "the EPL." He suggested I use Premiership or Barclay's Premier League. I asked him what he called the Scottish Premier League. He responded, begrudgingly, "the SPL." End of story. Poser. Hooray Beer.

They're called "freseros" because it's the largest strawberry-picking region of Mexico. It also refers to somebody who sells strawberries...

"Fresa" is slang for rich kid in Mexico City, but imagine something along the lines of the way a "Valley Girl" in California would speak, albeit in Spanish...

On a sidenote- did you hear that Veracruz was trying to charge the opposing teams extra for Blanco to play against them?! This was reported by David Faitelson, one of ESPN's Spanish language futbol commentators. Ridiculous...